Dolphins/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, are adrift at sea on a rubber raft. Neither of them looks happy. MOBY: Beep. Moby imagines that Tim's face has turned into a raw steak. MOBY: Beep. Moby shakes his head. Tim's face returns to normal. TIM: Mmm. Whoa. Tim imagines that Moby's head has turned into a milk shake. TIM: Aaah. Tim shakes his head. Moby's head returns to normal. A dolphin's chatter is heard. TIM: Mmm. Fish sticks. Tim imagines a floating plate of fish sticks in the water. TIM: Duh. MOBY: Beep. The plate of fish sticks turns into a dolphin's head, poking above the water. The dolphin has an envelope in its mouth. Tim takes the envelope, opens it, and reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Can you tell me about dolphins? I find them interesting! Thanks a lot, Amy. TIM: Okay. Dolphins are a group of sea mammals closely related to whales. Both animals belong to the order Cetacea. Images show side views of a dolphin and a whale. TIM: In fact, dolphins are really a kind of toothed whale. Images compare the dolphin's mouth with the whale's mouth. The dolphin mouth has teeth. The whale mouth has a baleen. TIM: Like all mammals, dolphins are warm blooded and feed their babies on milk produced by the mother. An animation shows a baby dolphin swimming to and nursing from its mother. TIM: To keep their bodies warm, dolphins have evolved a thick layer of blubber. An animation shows blubber on the outer layer of the baby and mother whale, who swim away. MOBY: Beep? TIM: No, no. Like I said, they're mammals. They breathe air, not water. Every few minutes, dolphins have to surface to breathe. A blowhole on top of their heads exhales used-up air and inhales fresh air. An animation shows a dolphin raising its head above water and using its blowhole, located on its head, to breathe. Water squirts from its blowhole as it exhales. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, dolphins can be found in every ocean of the world, and even in some freshwater rivers. There are over forty different species. An image shows five different types of dolphins swimming together. TIM: When you think of dolphins, you probably picture the bottlenose species. An image shows a gray bottlenose dolphin. TIM: These friendly guys tend to hang out close to shore, where people are. They grow up to four meters long and can weigh over six hundred kilograms. An image shows a side view of a bottlenose dolphin. A graphic beneath the image indicates that it is four meters long as Tim describes. TIM: But dolphins come as small as the meter-long Hector's dolphin, or as big as the killer whale, or orca, which can grow close to ten meters long and weigh ten thousand kilograms. Images compare the sizes of a Hector's dolphin, a bottlenose dolphin, and a killer whale. TIM: Dolphins are fast swimmers. Some of them can top fifty kilometers per hour. An animation shows a bottlenose dolphin swimming very fast. Text on a speedometer below the dolphin reads: 55 kilometers per hour. TIM: They move by beating their powerful tails, or flukes, up and down. The dorsal fin and flippers help them steer. An image shows the parts of the dolphin as Tim refers to them. The dorsal fin is at the back of the dolphin's body. One flipper is on the dolphin's back, and the others are on the bottom near the dolphin's head. TIM: Dolphins use all that speed to catch their food, mainly fish, crab, squid, and other animals. An animation shows a dolphin catching up to a group of fish. It eats one of them. TIM: Their dominant sense is echolocation, a way of bouncing sound off objects to measure distance and position. An animation shows a dolphin swimming and sending out sound waves as Tim describes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, an organ, called a melon, in their foreheads emits a series of clicks. The dolphin continues to swim. An image shows the location of a dolphin's melon as Tim describes. It makes sounds, and lines represent the movement of the sound waves into the water. The sound waves hit a group of small fish and bounce back to the dolphin. TIM: The dolphin senses the return wave through its jaw. The dolphin thinks of the fish and licks its lips. TIM: Like sonar, echolocation gives dolphins a detailed picture of their environment, which helps them find food and avoid obstacles. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I suppose people are interested in dolphins because they're so intelligent. Their brains rival ours in size and complexity. Images compare a human brain to a dolphin's brain. The two are quite similar. TIM: You've probably seen videos of them doing tricks, but they can also do serious stuff like locating lost divers and underwater mines. Images show a dolphin twirling a ring with its nose, finding a lost diver, and finding an explosive underwater mine. TIM: In ancient Greece, they were thought to help sailors in distress. An image shows an ancient Greek plate. It is decorated with dolphins and a run-down ship. TIM: Modern sailors often see them bow riding, swimming and jumping on the waves in front of big boats. An animation shows a person standing on a boat, watching dolphins jump and play as Tim describes. TIM: Just like people, dolphins are social animals, traveling in tight-knit groups called pods. And like us, they seem to have a sense of humor. An animation shows a boy holding a fish over the side of a boat to feed a dolphin. The boy holds his hat in his other hand. The dolphin takes the hat instead of the fish and makes a laughter-like sound. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, scientists aren't really sure about those whistling sounds. It could be a way for them to identify individuals, but it also might be a complex language. Hey, Moby. Ask him if we can have a ride back to shore. MOBY: Beep. Moby beeps at the dolphin who is swimming by their rubber raft. The dolphin makes chattering sounds in return. Moby beeps to Tim. TIM: Twenty dollars? I don't have twenty dollars. Tim speaks to the dolphin. TIM: I, I don't have twenty dollars. The dolphin dives underwater. He splashes water at Tim and Moby as he swims off.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts